Cristian Ramirez has been detained!!!

Cristian Ramirez is one of the most outstanding young man I know. Cristian is a faithful volunteer with our youth each Wednesday night and daily during our summer program. Cristian has a key to my home and takes care of my dog when I am out of town. He is 21 years old and is a college student at Brookhaven College. He wants o be a state trooper and wants to serve his church and our nation.

He was born in El Salvador. After the civil war in El Salvador, crime erupted as a generation who made a living with the gun and without education continued to proliferate the violence in the country. That violence lead to two kidnappings of Cristian's father. He and his step-mother decided to leave their country and come to the United States in search of safety and a future.

Cristian was in El Salvador living with his mother. With his father living far away, Cristian began hanging around some older youth. Cristian would later learn that they were members of the MS-13 gang. At 12 years of age, his father brought Cristian to the U.S. to visit for Christmas. While he was gone, the tattooed youth came looking for him. Out of fear for his future, Cristian's mother told Cristian's father and step-mother to keep Cristian in the U.S., for things were too dangerous for him in El Salvador.

Cristian's parents and little sister have gotten permission to stay in the U.S. and work through a special program for Salvadorans. Cristian came in 2 months too late for this program, but his parents decide to keep the young child here, to protect him from the gangs in his home country and to give him an education.

Cristian is now 21. He is a high school graduate and is enrolled in Brookhaven College. He has held stable employment in a restaurant. He has seen what gangs have done to so many of his peers and has poured himself into Christ's Foundry's Youth Program to seek to help youth stay off drugs, out of gangs, on a good track of education and experiencing the love of Christ that he openly shares with the youth.

Last year, Cristian was driving in Farmers Branch with an expired registration sticker. He had missed a court date for a previous traffic violation and was arrested. The Farmers Branch Police turned Cristian over to Immigration. Today Cristian has a deportation order against him. His family, as you can imagine, is devastated. We need your help.

Cristian is currently being held in Haskell, Texas at the Rolling Plains Detention Center to await deportation. We are praying for a miracle. Call or write your representatives today (202) 224-3121 and tell them about Cristian and tell them to get busy and pass comprehensive immigration reform or at the least, the Dream Act. Call and write the White House and the Department of Homeland Security and tell them not to take this son/Youth Director/College Student/Dreamer/and future law enforcement officer from his family, church, studies, and his adopted country, the United States of America.